We love π !!!http://www.flickr.com/groups/welovepi/
<b>This group is all about pictures of π (Pi). π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. The symbol π was first proposed by the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706. It is approximately equal to 3.141592654 in the usual decimal notation. π is one of the most important mathematical and physical constants: many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve π.
π is an irrational number, which means that its value cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction m/n, where m and n are integers. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It is also a transcendental number, which implies, among other things, that no ifinite sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.) can be equal to its value; proving this was a late achievement in mathematical history and a significant result of 19th century German mathematics. Throughout the history of mathematics, there has been much effort to determine π more accurately and to understand its nature; fascination with the number has even carried over into non-mathematical culture.
The Greek letter π, often spelled out pi in text, was adopted for the number from the Greek word for perimeter &quot;περίμετρος&quot;, first by William Jones in 1707, and popularized by Leonhard Euler in 1737.The name of the Greek letter π is pi, and this spelling is commonly used in typographical contexts when the Greek letter is not available or its usage could be problematic. It is not capitalised (Π) even at the beginning of a sentence. When referring to this constant, the symbol π is always pronounced /ˈpaɪ/, &quot;pie&quot; in English, which is the conventional English pronunciation of the Greek letter. In Greek, the name of this letter is pronounced [pi].
The constant is named &quot;π&quot; because &quot;π&quot; is the first letter of the Greek words περιφέρεια (periphery) and περίμετρος (perimeter), probably referring to its use in the formula to find the circumference, or perimeter, of a circle. π is Unicode character U+03C0 (&quot;Greek small letter pi&quot;).
π is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be written as the ratio of two integers. The belief in the irrationality of π is mentioned by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī[11] in the 9th century. Maimonides also mentions with certainty the irrationality of π in the 12th century. This was proved in 1768 by Johann Heinrich Lambert. In the 20th century, proofs were found that require no prerequisite knowledge beyond integral calculus. One of those, due to Ivan Niven, is widely known. A somewhat earlier similar proof is by Mary Cartwright.
π is also a transcendental number, meaning that there is no polynomial with rational coefficients for which π is a root. This was proved by Ferdinand von Lindemann in 1882. An important consequence of the transcendence of π is the fact that it is not constructible. Because the coordinates of all points that can be constructed with compass and straightedge are constructible numbers, it is impossible to square the circle: that is, it is impossible to construct, using compass and straightedge alone, a square whose area is equal to the area of a given circle. This is historically significant, for squaring a circle is one of the easily understood elementary geometry problems left to us from antiquity; many amateurs in modern times have attempted to solve each of these problems, and their efforts are sometimes ingenious, but in this case, doomed to failure: a fact not always understood by the amateur involved.
The decimal representation of π truncated to 50 decimal places is:
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510
While the decimal representation of π has been computed to more than a trillion (1012) digits, elementary applications, such as calculating the circumference of a circle, will rarely require more than a dozen decimal places. For example, a value truncated to 11 decimal places is accurate enough to calculate the circumference of a circle the size of the earth with a precision of a millimeter, and one truncated to 39 decimal places is sufficient to compute the circumference of any circle that fits in the observable universe to a precision comparable to the size of a hydrogen atom.
Because π is an irrational number, its decimal expansion never ends and does not repeat. This infinite sequence of digits has fascinated mathematicians and laymen alike, and much effort over the last few centuries has been put into computing more digits and investigating the number's properties. Despite much analytical work, and supercomputer calculations that have determined over 1 trillion digits of π, no simple base-10 pattern in the digits has ever been found. Digits of π are available on many web pages, and there is software for calculating π to billions of digits on any personal computer.
Even long before computers have calculated π, memorizing a record number of digits became an obsession for some people. In 2006, Akira Haraguchi, a retired Japanese engineer, claimed to have recited 100,000 decimal places. This, however, has yet to be verified by Guinness World Records. The Guinness-recognized record for remembered digits of π is 67,890 digits, held by Lu Chao, a 24-year-old graduate student from China. It took him 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite to the 67,890th decimal place of π without an error.
On June, 17th, 2009 Andriy Slyusarchuk, a Ukrainian neurosurgeon, medical doctor and professor claimed to have memorized 30 million digits of pi, which were printed in 20 volumes of text. He has been officially congratulated by the President of Ukraine Viktor Yuschenko. A possibility of financing a dedicated research center for development of Mr. Slyusarchuk's methodology had been discussed. owever, this claim is doubted by some skeptics.[citation needed].
There are many ways to memorize π, including the use of &quot;piems&quot;, which are poems that represent π in a way such that the length of each word (in letters) represents a digit. Here is an example of a piem, originally devised by Sir James Jeans: How I need (or: want) a drink, alcoholic in nature (or: of course), after the heavy lectures (or: chapters) involving quantum mechanics. Notice how the first word has 3 letters, the second word has 1, the third has 4, the fourth has 1, the fifth has 5, and so on. The Cadaeic Cadenza contains the first 3834 digits of π in this manner. Piems are related to the entire field of humorous yet serious study that involves the use of mnemonic techniques to remember the digits of π, known as piphilology. In other languages there are similar methods of memorization. However, this method proves inefficient for large memorizations of π. Other methods include remembering patterns in the numbers and the method of loci.
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</b></b></b>Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:26:58 -0700Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:26:58 -0700http://www.flickr.com/http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2636/buddyicons/1165597@N24.jpg?1250378840We love π !!!http://www.flickr.com/groups/welovepi/